IntelliJ IDEA 2016.2 Help

Resolving Conflicts

Depending on the type of your version control system, conflicts arise in different situations.

Non-Distributed Version Control Systems

Working in a team, you might come across a situation, when somebody commits changes to a file you are
currently working on.
Conflicts can also arise on merging branches, applying patches or unshelving changes.
If the changes are not overlapping, the files are merged automatically, but when there
are changes to the same lines, you will need to resolve such conflict yourself.

When you try to edit a file that has a newer version on the server, IntelliJ IDEA informs you about
that, showing a message pop-up window in the editor:
In this case you should update your local version prior to changing the file, or merge changes.

If you try to commit a file that has a newer repository version, an error is reported in the
Messages tool window:

If you synchronize a file, that already has local changes, with a newer repository version, committed by
somebody else, a conflict occurs. The conflicting file gets status
Merged with conflicts.
The file remains in the same changelist in the Local Changes tab of the
Version Control tool window, but its name is highlighted red.
If the file is currently opened in the editor, the file name on the tab header is also highlighted red.

Distributed Version Control Systems

Conflict Resolution Tool

IntelliJ IDEA suggests a tool for resolving conflicts locally. This tool consists of three
panes. The left pane shows the read-only local copy; the right pane shows the read-only version checked
in to the repository. The central pane shows a fully-functional editor with the results of merging and
conflict resolving. Initially, the contents of this pane is the same as the base revision
of the file, that is, the revision from which both conflicting versions derived.

To resolve conflicts, follow these general steps

Select the conflicting file in the Version Control,
Update Version Control, or Project tool
window, or open it in the editor.

On the context menu, under the node of your VCS integration, choose the VCS-specific merge command.

Perform edit in the merge tool to apply or discard changes, as described in the procedures below.

To apply or discard a change

In the left or right pane, select the change to be merged. Use arrow and/or find buttons on the
toolbar to navigate to the desired location.